Monthly Archive for June, 2014

: June, 2014

A lone bur oak stands at the edge of a cornfield in Platteville, Wis. In summer, it boasts a thick canopy of leaves; in winter, a tangle of bare branches. In the morning it casts a long shadow; at night, it anchors a showy sunset. On a foggy day, it becomes a spooky still life. After snowfall, a sparkly fairy land. Mark Hirsch knows this tree better than anyone. Every day for one year, he photographed it with his iPhone and posted the best image on social media. Now those photos are gathered in a book, appropriately titled “That Tree.” …

Author Jacqueline Winspear, author of the best-selling book series featuring Maisie Dobbs, will appear in Houston to discuss and sign her new standalone novel, “The Care and Management of Lies,” which opens in England on the eve of World War I. Winspear will appear at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Murder By The Book, 2342 Bissonnet; 713-524-8597, or, toll-free, 888-424-2842 or murderbooks.com. …

If you’d ask Tom Robbins what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding, he’d probably reply, “Everything.” He may have been a counterculture icon, but he’s never taken things too seriously, including his memoir, “Tibetan Peach Pie.” …

What’s a poet’s best friend if not a dictionary? Poets are makers, etymology teaches us. They build out of words simple and complex, familiar and strange. The marvel of the poem is to be at once heightened and ordinary language. At least this is the idea Edward Hirsch tests out in “A Poet’s Glossary,” a weighty book that reflects a lifetime’s devotion to the art of poetry and that attends to the “small devices and large mysteries” of poetry.
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We’re about a month into Chipotle’s grand experiment, conceived by New York writer Jonathan Safran Foer (“Everything Is Illuminated”). While dining in Chipotle and finding he had nothing to read (what, doesn’t the guy have a smartphone?), Foer had the idea to put nibbles of prose on the restaurant’s paper cups and bags. The fast-food chain, which boasts more than 1,650 restaurants in 40 states, agreed and “Cultivating Thought” was born. The project enlists writers to compose a little two-minute something for customers to consume along with their burrito bowl. but Mexican-Americans noticed that despite Chipotle’s cuisine – burritos, tacos, etc. – the “Cultivating Thought” project includes no Mexican-Americans. No Latinos at all, in fact. …

The idea is to help local poets create/edit/refine their submissions for the 2014 Houston Poetry Fest and other events. Houston poetry editors Billie Duncan and Scott Chalupa will lead the workshops. …

Cormoran Strike and his young assistant, Robin Ellacott, are back — in “The Silkworm.” The new novel by Robert Galbraith — a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books — is the second in a series of crime fiction books about private detective Cormoran Strike and his determined assistant. …